Tree lighting & visit from Santa soon

Santa arrives in front of city hall for the 2010 lighting of the Christmas tree. The popular event draws hundreds, and offers music and refreshments (News-Ledger photo)

[adrotate group=”10″] FROM THE NEWS-LEDGER —

The annual West Sacramento Tree Lighting is on the schedule for 6-8:30 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 30 in front of city hall, 1110 West Capitol Avenue.

Kids can get a picture with Santa at this popular event between 6:30-8 p.m. Entertainment will include the River City High School Choir, West Sacramento Community Singers and Russian Baptist Church Dawn Choir. The event is free, hosted by the City and the Chamber of Commerce. There will be refreshments. “Mooie’s After Party” will follow, across the street at the community center. For more information, visit www.westsacramentochamber.com or call 371-7042.

Do you like what you see here?

You can support local journalism, support this website, and see all the News-Ledger’s articles every week! Subscribe to the News-Ledge newspaper. It’s only $20 per year within West Sacramento – once a week, delivered to your mailbox.

You can even try it for free for two months if you live in West Sacramento. Just send your name and mailing address to FreeTrial@news-ledger.com (offer open to new subscribers in West Sacramento ZIP codes 95691 & 95605).

Copyright News-Ledger 2012

West Sac vet rides in parade

[adrotate group=”9″] FROM THE NEWS-LEDGER — NOV 14, 2012 —

Former sergeant Eli Plaugher of West Sacramento (waving) served in the Korean War in 1951 -1952. Sunday, he rode in the downtown Sacramento Veteran’s Day parade. With him (at left) is family friend Sgt. Tommy Wang who served two tours in Iraq.

West Sacramento did not hold a Veterans Day parade this year.

(photo courtesy of Gail Stone)

Ballots counted, Westin loses seat

BREAKING NEWS — NEWS-LEDGER ONLINE — Nov 19, 2012 —

By Steve Marschke

News-Ledger Editor

The Yolo County Elections Department has made it through the final 3,000-or-so West Sacramento ballots cast in the November 6 election. The count left local results little changed from the early totals released last week.

As elections officials began counting these absentee and provisional ballots, school board member David Westin was 88 votes short of the winners’ circle last week. The additional ballots didn’t help him.

“The final count has David Westin 108 votes back,” said Tom Stanionis, chief of staff of the elections department.

[adrotate group=”7″] The new count leaves the winners in the Washington Unified School District race unchanged. Challenger Katie Villegas is at the top of the chart with 7,658 votes (24.7%), challenger Alicia Cruz has 6,086 votes (19.6%) and incumbent Mary Leland holds onto the third slot with 5,671 votes (18.3%).

In the fight for two seats on the West Sacramento City Council, William “Bill” Kristoff ended up with 10,114 votes (45.4%) and Oscar Villegas took the second spot with 9,987 votes (44.8%).

City council challenger Oleg Maskaev fell short, with 2,168 votes, or 9.7%.

Mayor Christopher Cabaldon was unopposed, drawing 12,766 votes.

Total turnout was 15,719 (67.8%) of 23,168 registered voters, reports the elections office. These results, while complete, are unofficial.

Do you like what you see here?

You can support local journalism, support this website, and see all the News-Ledger’s articles every week! Subscribe to the News-Ledge newspaper. It’s only $20 per year within West Sacramento – once a week, delivered to your mailbox.

You can even try it for free for two months if you live in West Sacramento. Just send your name and mailing address to FreeTrial@news-ledger.com (offer open to new subscribers in West Sacramento ZIP codes 95691 & 95605).

Copyright News-Ledger 2012

Guilty of hammer attack at park

NEWS-LEDGER ONLINE — NOV 19, 2012 —

Yolo County District Attorney Jeff Reisig announced that on Friday, a Yolo County jury convicted 21-year old Christopher Lee Castillo of West Sacramento for his participation in a gang assault of two juvenile victims in the Memorial Park area of West Sacramento on March 19, 2010.

The two victims and their family had been harassed by the gang members during the two months before the assault, said the D.A.’s office.

“When the two victims, who were brothers, went to confront members of the gang, they were ambushed by numerous gang members armed with weapons, and a pit bull,” according to the D.A.’s statement. “Defendant Castillo struck one of the victims in the head with a hammer, creating a deep gash. After the assault the gang members continued to threaten and harass the family causing the family to move twice. Since the incident nine other defendants had entered pleas to various charges.”

[adrotate group=”9″] The jury deliberated for less than four hours before returning guilty verdicts on all counts, including conspiracy, assault with a deadly weapon and criminal street gang activity. The defendant will be sentenced on December 14, before Judge Stephen L. Mock.

District Attorney Jeff Reisig credited the efforts of Officer Labin Wilson and the West Sacramento Police Department in investigating the case. “The juveniles in this case were victimized for standing up to a gang of bullies,” commented Reisig in a press statement.

Copyright News-Ledger 2012

Free food Tuesday morning in West Sac

FROM THE NEWS-LEDGER —

The Food Bank of Yolo County will distribute free food to eligible residents of West Sacramento and Clarksburg on Tuesday, Nov. 20.

City’s incumbents reelected, but West Sac school board race too close to call

[adrotate group=”7″] FROM THE NEWS-LEDGER — NOV 14, 2012 —

By Steve MarschkeNews-Ledger Editor

West Sacramento voters spoke last week on several local issues.

A week later, what we know almost for certain is that city council incumbents Bill Kristoff and Oscar Villegas fended off professional boxer Oleg Maskaev to retain their seats on the council, and Christopher Cabaldon will get another term as mayor. He ran unopposed.

It’s also pretty clear that challenger Katie Villegas, executive director of the Yolo County Children’s Alliance, will get a seat on the local school board.

But with absentee ballots and provisional ballots that made up about a quarter of the local vote still to be tallied, it’s less obvious which other two candidates will win a school board term.

Second place candidate Alicia Cruz has 4,915 votes so far, followed by incumbent Mary Leland at 4,598 and incumbent Dave Westin with 4,510. With 3,000 ballots yet to be fully processed, that cluster – particularly the 88-vote spread between Leland and Westin – doesn’t look overly secure. There’s only room for two of those three candidates to join Villegas as winners in the Washington Unified School District race.

“Between provisional ballots and absentee ballots that were dropped off at the polling places, I would estimate a little over 3,000 remain to be counted (in the West Sacramento race),” said spokesperson Tom Stanionis of the Yolo Elections Department. “That’s about 25 percent of the votes cast.”

What are “provisional” ballots?

“When somebody shows up at a polling place and they aren’t on the list, or they are on the list but they were mailed an absentee ballot which they can’t find or produce, we go through and research each one to see if that person can vote. Typically, they’re voting in the wrong place.”

The elections department is allowed up to 28 days to finish its vote count, but Stanionis said staff at the Woodland office would like to finish earlier – perhaps ahead of Thanksgiving next week.

KATIE VILLEGAS: Top vote-getter in the race for three seats on the school board (News-Ledger photo)

Villegas – top candidate in the school district race – told the News-Ledger she is “super excited” about her apparent top finish. She’s over a thousand votes ahead of second-place Cruz. Why does she think she succeeded?

“I worked seven days a week for about 10 weeks on this campaign,” she said. “I hit about 3,000 homes walking precincts. I think (the win came from) everything combined – the hard work, the message, and the work I’ve already done in the community,” she said.

Does she have a plan for “day one” when she’s seated on the board next month?

“I think I still have a lot of meetings before day one,” Villegas answered. “There’s a school board conference, meeting with the (district) cabinet, touring schools. I think I’ll be getting up to speed pretty quickly.”

Westin, at least for the moment, appears to be losing his seat on the school board. But swing of about 90 votes could change that.

“With 3,000 votes not being counted, and the race so close, it’s too early to tell,” he commented to the News-Ledger.

Westin is perhaps the board’s best-known member in recent years, serving as president of the board during a period of dramatic student test gains.

Westin thinks some campaigning against him by an independent group is responsible for his current fourth-place in the standings.

DAVID WESTIN: former board president is now in fourth place, but hopes final ballots will lift him into the winner's circle (photo from WUSD website)

“We ran a clean, honest, positive campaign,” said Westin. “They ran a closing-in-on $50,000 special interest, developer-funded attack campaign specifically designed to go after me on false, misleading and inaccurate information. . . if they hadn’t run that, this would have been a blow-out result.”

Westin was referring to mailers by the “Keep West Sacramento Moving Forward” organization claiming the school district is a “mess,” and that claimed only eight high school juniors out of 500 here “are considered ‘college ready.’”

Their mailers urged a “no” vote on Westin. One mailer featured Mayor Cabaldon and Yolo County Supervisor suggesting “yes” votes on competitors Villegas, Leland and Cruz.

Do you like what you see here?

You can support local journalism, support this website, and see all the News-Ledger’s articles every week! Subscribe to the News-Ledge newspaper. It’s only $20 per year within West Sacramento – once a week, delivered to your mailbox.

You can even try it for free for two months if you live in West Sacramento. Just send your name and mailing address to FreeTrial@news-ledger.com (offer open to new subscribers in West Sacramento ZIP codes 95691 & 95605).